5. Roll into a ball. You want a dough ball without visible seams except the bottom.

6. Place dough ball in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and allow to rise for 1−2 hours at room temperature to use the same day, or store in refrigerator to use the next day.

7. Place dough ball on lightly floured surface, and lightly flour the top. Use fingertips to evenly flatten out the dough ball. Work from the edges to the center press dough into a 12″ circle. Place both hands within the shell edge and stretch with fingertips and palms maintaining an even pressure. Or, use a lightly floured rolling pin to stretch to desired shape.

8. Top your pizza. I used a can of spaghetti sauce, diced tomatoes, onion, mushroom, browned italian sausage, lots of mozzarella cheese, and pepperoni.

9. After topping the pizza, when you are ready to cook it. Carefully slide the pizza into the oven.

10. Bake in a 500 degree oven for 20-25 minutes, until crust is golden.

Cooking pizzas with this dough should be done on a baking stone. Using a pan will produce a very soft “doughy” crust. The stone in the oven should be preheated to 500F for an hour prior to baking, and should be placed in the middle of the oven.

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Marie Antoinette was the very young (14 years old), Austrian born bride toFrance’ King Louis XVI during the French Revolution. She is most remembered for the infamous (and likely non-factual) comment “let them eat cake!” in reference to a mostly starving population of French peasants. Had she lost her mind?

If you are the Queen, and your subjects and their children are starving of basic nutrition, you should not make light of their plight by suggesting that they should just eat cake. This would tend to make your subjects become disillusioned with their current monarchy.

Whether or not Marie had lost her mind was of no consequence, as she eventually lost her head. Ironically, the phrase she uttered, qu’ils mangent de la brioche, actually means let them eat brioche, and was most likely intended to show sympathy for the people, not disdain.

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This week, one of the local markets had cherries for a decent price. I got cherry preserves in my mind. I rolled the idea around in my head for several days because I knew I didn’t have time to do anything with them. Meanwhile, my mother-in-law brought a small box of peaches from her tree. So yesterday, I broke down and bought cherries.

The peaches were small so i decided to boil them and then strain the fruit rather than peel and pit them. While they boiled, I pitted the 8 pounds of beautiful, yummy cherries. The cherries were then put in another pot to boil with sugar and cinnamon.

The cherries finished first. The first thing I did was to take 2 cups of cherry juice and add it to the peaches. Next,I put the cherries into 7 quart jars. 6 of the jars were sealed up and prepared to process through the canner. The last jar I set aside for a cherry pie.

Meanwhile, the peaches had softened. I strained the peach pulp into the juice and threw away the skins and pits, although I noticed that one jar has a pit in it. I added 3 cups of sugar, 2 packages of pectin and brought the mix to a boil. When the jam was ready, I filled 6 pint jars of cherry-peach jam.

Then I loaded the canner and processed my jars. I love the way the finished jars look!

While the jars were processing, I made a cherry pie!

In a bowl I mixed 2 cups of flour and a tsp of salt. i then cut in 1/2 cup of cold butter. Before I started, I took a stick of butter and cut it into small pieces. Those pieces are what I cut into the flour. Once the mixture resembled small crumbs, I drizzled a couple tablespoons of ice water over the flour and mixed it in. I continued until I had a dough that could be formed into a ball. I then covered it with plastic wrap and refrigerated it for a half hour.

At the end of the half hour, I rolled the dough out to about 1/2 inch thickness and placed it into the pie crust. I poured the cherries I had saved into the crust and sprinkled a 1/4 cup of flour over them. I rolled out the rest of the dough to form a top crust and sealed the edges. the pie baked at 425 for a half hour and then at 350 for another 20 minutes.

This morning, I decided I needed biscuits for the jam. I found this recipe online and then changed it a little (as always…lol!)

Granny’s Homemade Biscuits

2 cups flour

1 Tbs baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 Tbs honey

1/4 cup shortening

3/4 cup milk

1. Combine the dry ingredients.

2. Add honey and shortening. Cut in until mix resmbles coarse crumbs.

3. Add milk. Mix well.

4. Make a dough ball and knead for a minute on a floured surface.

5. Roll out to 3/4 inch thickness and cut biscuits.

6. Bake at 425 for 12-15 minutes. They become really fluffy and golden brown.

Ingredients

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Spread the coconut on a baking sheet and bake it, stirring occasionally, until golden brown, about 5 minutes.

In a medium saucepan, combine the half-and-half, eggs, sugar, flour and salt and mix well. Bring to a boil over low heat, stirring constantly. Remove the pan from the heat, and stir in 3/4 cup of the toasted coconut and the vanilla extract. Reserve the remaining coconut to top the pie.

Pour the filling into the pie shell and chill until firm, about 4 hours.